Iran Lets Foreign Visitors Tour A Nuclear Facility

February 04, 2007|By Los Angeles Times

ESFAHAN, IRAN — A diplomat says they want all to know it's for "peaceful purposes."

The squat, tan buildings with barred windows can be reached only by driving well outside the city to a flat stretch of desert on the edge of the hills. The site is surrounded by an array of anti-aircraft artillery emplacements, each with one or two soldiers at the ready, and a large metal fence topped with barbed wire.

Once inside the reception hall, visitors are greeted by a huge poster that says: "Nuclear Energy Is Our Obvious Right."

Here, in a city considered the heart of its nuclear development program, is where Iran has been taking the initial technological steps to turn ordinary uranium into the makings of nuclear fuel.

In a rare invitation to foreign visitors Saturday, Iranian officials opened the doors of the normally closed facility. The officials reported that the fledgling conversion program, which was in its infancy only three years ago, has manufactured 250 tons of uranium hexafluoride gas, the feedstock for Iran's controversial uranium enrichment program.

The group included visitors from all over the world, said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We want to remove these ambiguities and questions from our Arab brothers and sisters in the region. They have to know that everything is transparent and it is for peaceful purposes, and there is no concern as far as safety is concerned," Soltanieh said.

The facility is only a piece of its nuclear program, which Iran says it is pursuing in order to develop new sources of electrical power and maintain the nation's high level of oil exports. *